Mary's Musings: Beauty of God's creations exemplified

There is something exciting about watching virile young men and women in the prime of their life competing at something they love.

There has been a lot of discussion about the apparent lack of preparedness that Sochi has displayed from the first day. Russia has a lot of billionaires, so I guess since the place wasn't ready, it just wasn't interesting enough to those billionaires to take the nearly seven years they had to prepare and create something incredible. After all, Moscow is the billionaire capital of the world, according to Forbes.

One question that has been discussed in the media is the supposed malfunction of the huge display of the five Olympic rings at the opening ceremonies. Most chalk it up to technical difficulties that caused one of the rings to look like a star. Many discussions about the malfunctioning Olympic ring talk about the fact that it disappeared just as Mr. Putin arrived in the stadium.

Another curious thing about it is that evidently media assigned to the rehearsals for the opening ceremonies carefully created videos from the perfectly functioning circles of the night before. Some news reports indicate that those carefully edited views of the five Olympic rings were broadcast to everyone within Russia. Evidently it was clear they would be needed, so they were ready to go.

The rest of the world saw the malfunctioning rings. It is hard to imagine that the Russian leaders planned for this malfunction, but I challenge you to go online and look at the pictures of those Olympic rings from the opening ceremonies. You will note a strange thing. If you look at the star and the formation it creates, it doesn't take much imagination to realize it looks a lot like the symbols on the Russian flag. Sickle and star ? and, more, one person pointed out to me that with that star in that particular position, the whole formation looks a lot like a tank that is firing into the audience.

There was an author named David Foster Wallace who wrote long essays on how television has changed the way culture operates. When he first wrote about it, television shows were mostly for entertainment. With the advent of 24-hour news channels, the entertainment factor diminished a lot. Wallace wrote that even when an event is occurring and is televised, you no longer can just look at it. You are told what is going to happen. Then you watch it while people tell you what you are seeing. Then, afterwards, they tell you what you saw. It is no longer relevant what you actually observed. He maintained television is a dangerous tool in our society. Watching this Olympics, I tend to agree with him.

At any rate, one just has to hope that the blunders of the Russians and seemingly non-caring attitude toward the event does not cause the Olympics to lose supporters for the future. I cannot imagine the Olympic committee preapproved having showers for the athletes where they were locked in and one had to break out of the shower to get out.

Excellence is something to behold. Physical excellence is rare in this world of obesity and not so active persons. I enjoy celebrating the work it takes to create a fine skater or ice dancer or skier or snowboarder. I hope that there will always be events like the Olympics where excellence is honored and rewarded.

And someday I would just like to watch it without all the commentary from people who supposedly know more than I do telling me what I am seeing. During a couple of the ice dancing competitions the commentators kept silent and just let one watch the beauty and artistry of the skaters. It was extremely enjoyable. And I was sad when they started up again, talking through the whole thing. We have gotten to where we turn off the sound and just observe the beauty. Try it. They are all beautiful creations of God doing what they do best. Enjoy.